HILLSBORO Star-Journal

Neighbors from properties along Washington and Lincoln Streets near Grand Street in Hillsboro attended the city council meeting Tuesday to express concerns about the condition of their alley.
“There are about five residences that use the south 100 block alley to get in and out of their garages and it is just a mess,” said Joan Jost who lives at 108 S. Washington with her husband, Jerry Jost. “We are requesting that the city maintain this alley for us. It is in terrible shape with potholes that are 12 inches deep in some places. And the whole thing needs rock.”

If it takes 11 or 12 inches of snow to make an inch of water, most Marion County wheat fields are in the process of soaking up just over an inch or two of the coveted moisture.
“I don’t think we can say we’ve broken the drought, but this moisture has eased the situation,” said K-State research and extension agent Rickey Roberts on Tuesday. “We have the top soil moisture we need and there is enough for wheat to break dormancy and start growing, but we still need more moisture to replenish the subsoil losses we’ve had over the past several years.”

Members of the GAP club at Hillsboro High School worked hard Tuesday to create a pleasant shopping experience for girls in need of prom dresses.
Big pink bows, pink streamers, and beaded ropes transformed the entrance into Wiebe Media Center at the high school into a shoppers’ paradise, complete with mood music and confectionary treats.

Helen E. Costello, 93, of Tampa died Sunday at Derby Health and Rehabilitation in Derby. She was born Dec. 15, 1919, at Pratt to L.F. and Marie Alexander Daughtry.
She grew up and attended school in Pratt, graduating from Pratt High School. She attended Pratt College for two years, then Emporia Teachers College.

Carl E. Cyr, 71, of McPherson died Feb. 26 at Hospice House in Hutchinson. He was born May 18, 1941, in Como to Clarence E. and Lena E. (Biery) Cyr.
He attended schools in Como, Mulberry, and Morganville and graduated from Clay Center High School in 1959. He attended Washburn University in Topeka. He was a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in McPherson and St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Marion.

Frank J. Ediger, 91, of Hillsboro died Sunday at Parkside Homes. He was born Sept. 28, 1921, to Frank C. and Martha (Harms) Ediger in Henderson, Neb.
He is survived by his wife, Elvina of Hillsboro; three sons, Dennis of Myrtle Beach, S.C., Mark of Junction City, and Garth of Overland Park; a daughter, Juanita Carter of Topeka; 10 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.

Alene R. (McCoy) Engel, 93, of Hillsboro died Sunday at Salem Home in Hillsboro. She was born Jan. 31, 1920, to Frank and Laura (Rodes) Burdette, rural Herington.
She married Dale McCoy in 1940; he died in 1955. She then married Charles A. Engel.

Betty A. Fetrow, 90, of Cedar Point died Feb. 26 at Newton Medical Center. She was born Sept. 25, 1922, in El Dorado to Harry and Alma (Dorman) Wilson. She was a retired school teacher.
She married H. Mason Fetrow on June 10, 1943.

Calvin Everett Seadeek, 70, of Council Grove died Feb. 27 at his residence.
He was born Feb. 2, 1943, in Holland, N.Y., to Everett and June (Wheeler) Seadeek. He married Linda Kay Smith on Aug. 22, 1970, in Winter Park, Fla.

Vernon D. Stika, 67, of Tampa died Sunday at Hillsboro Community Hospital. He was born June 1, 1945, in Marion to Mike and Helen Stika. He lived in the Tampa community all his life and was a mechanic.
He is survived by two brothers, LaVerne of Herington and Eugene of Lincolnville.

Ivan W. Wyatt, 83, of Clements died Feb. 25 at Holiday Resort in Emporia. He was born March 20, 1929, in Bazaar to Carl A. and Gladys J. Stout Wyatt.
He graduated from Clements High School in 1947. He married Martha Mushrush on July 2, 1950. They later divorced.

Aaron Woelk, 15, did not start out trying to make money with his air-soft gun hobby; he just wanted a gun that worked so he could shoot his friends, all in fun, of course.
“I had been saving my money for a while, looking online, and learning all I could about them before I bought my first one,” Woelk said. “Then I bought one and it broke right away. I tried to fix it, then figured out I could make more money just selling the parts online and using that to buy a new one.”

Lucy Mester of Marion filled up her gas tank Thursday, knowing that she was using every penny left in her checking account.
“With the gas prices this high, it’s hard to make ends meet,” she said. “I’ve got to pinch every penny so I can get where I need to go. Being on a fixed income isn’t fun, but you do what you’ve got to do in order to get by.”

When Jennifer and Mark Stevens got married last July, they thought life would be easier with a joint income.
“Boy, were we wrong,” Jennifer Stevens said. “We honestly thought that having two incomes would give us more money to work with each month, but it’s not that easy. Especially now, during tax season, there is just so much you have to think about.

Sometimes, no matter how hard one tries to make bill payments on time and to avoid excessive debt, bad credit happens. Everyone with a credit record also has a credit score and lenders use these scores to determine loan rates and possibilities. A higher score is better than a lower score.
Loan officer and Great Plains Federal Credit Union manager Elizabeth Wine said cleaning up bad credit is imperative to raising a lending score to acceptable status.

After more than 35 years of banking, Don Noller has been promoted to the position of executive vice president and cashier at Marion National Bank in Marion.
“In a small bank like this, my duties don’t change too much,” Noller said in a phone interview. “I guess they thought that I had been here long enough that I deserved to be promoted, hopefully that will include a pay raise.”

The year 2012 produced the best earnings performance that Central National Bank has ever had in a single year with a net of $9.3 million. The bank had record earnings in the trust department as well as an outstanding year for the mortgage banking division.
“We are very pleased with our results during 2012,” President and Chief Executive Officer Ed. C. Rolfs said. “We have weathered a challenging economic period in recent years, and it’s a significant milestone to finish the year with a record income total. In addition to strong earnings, our reserves and capital are also robust.”

Another scam to part bank customers from their money is making its rounds. Don Noller of Marion National Bank said his bank has received notification from its data processor that four banks have called about scam attempts on debit cards.
Cardholders receive calls on their cell phones telling them their debit cards have been blocked by their bank. They are asked to enter their debit card number to clear up the matter.

An increase in the value of farmland is driving an overall increase in Marion County assessed property values, County Appraiser Cindy Magill told the County Commission on Thursday.
The assessed value of farmland in the county went up about 7 percent, while the total assessed value for the county went up 3.5 percent before the appeals process, Magill said after the meeting.

I got a call late Thursday night about a bomb threat at Peabody-Burns Junior/Senior High School that had been discovered two weeks earlier. We found out just in time to cover the last of the response, as the threat said the explosion would be Friday (there was no explosion, thankfully).
Interviews revealed that the only people who were notified of the threat through official channels were school and law enforcement personnel and the parents of students — not the fire department, not the county commission, not the gas company, not the press, and not the general public. At least some of that seems to have stemmed from confusion of who was going to notify whom about the threat. Peabody Police Chief Bruce Burke thought the fire department and gas company had been informed. But part of it was a decision to only notify those the decision-makers determined needed to know.

LETTERS:

Remote activation and a louder sound are pluses for the new storm siren that city officials tested at noon on March 5 in Goessel.
“The current sirens will still be used for the noon whistle and in emergencies, but the new siren will make it possible for our firemen to activate warnings from their radios,” City Clerk Anita Goertzen said.

St. Luke Hospital Auxiliary will host a program Thursday presented by Serenity Gardens. Coffee will be served at 9:30 a.m. and the meeting will be at 10 a.m.

The Ladies Auxiliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6958 in Marion will have a breakfast and brunch of biscuits and sausage gravy, sausage links, bacon, juice, and coffee from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the post home, 420 W. Santa Fe St., Marion.
Donations will be collected for cancer aid and research. Since 1947, the Ladies Auxiliary has raised more than $100 million nationwide.

Although federal guidelines for handling bomb threats in schools recommend that local media be involved in planning how information is released, reporters learned about a bomb threat only by hearing rumors from parents who had received a letter from the district.
Sheriff Rob Craft was notified but didn’t include information about the threat on the activity log that state law requires him to make available for inspection by the press and public.

Nearly 40 percent of junior and senior high school students in Peabody stayed home from school Friday because of a bomb threat scrawled on a restroom wall two weeks earlier.
School officials chose not to notify the public of the threat but did notify parents via a letter sent a week after the threat was received.

Author Robert Collins will give a presentation on “Kansas County Seat Conflicts” at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Marion City Library.
Since the establishment of the Kansas Territory in 1855 well into the 20th century, communities have fought over being named the county seat. More than 60 of the state’s 105 counties have seen some attempt, successful or not, to move the county seat from the original site. Some conflicts were brief, like a two-month effort in Reno County, and others have been long, like the eight-decade struggle over the seat of Logan County. Some have been notorious for violence, like the conflict between Woodsdale and Hugoton in Stevens County.

“Broadway’s Next Hit Musical,” an improvised musical comedy, will be at the McPherson Opera House at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“I love to book shows that involve audience participation, and this one does it in spades,” said John Holecek, opera house executive director. “Each person in the audience is asked to make up a song title and write it down on a paper slip we provide. The six performers then randomly pull song titles out of a fishbowl and make up songs to go with the titles. The audience then votes on the song they like best, and right before their eyes, the cast delivers a full-blown, improvised musical comedy based on the song.”

Former Tabor College President Larry Nikkel will be the keynote speaker Friday at Lifelong Learning in Hillsboro. He will speak about his recently published autobiography, “Leading and Following — The Path of Service,” and share insights from his family life and leadership experiences.
A special musical presentation by a new Tabor College music teacher, soprano Janie Brokenicky, is also on the program.

BIRTHS:

CORRESPONDENTS:

The lunch lady, the bus driver, the principal, even the students are all fair game for humorous fun in Hillsboro High School’s spring play, “The High Schoolers Guide to the Galaxy” by Bryan Starchman.
“We wanted to try something different this year,” said second-year director Bob Woelk. “We looked at dozens of options and ordered this one as a trial. The students liked it and really bought into it. It should be entertaining.”

Goessel Elementary School Reading Night participants can expect clowns, balloons, popcorn, and family fun beginning at 6:45 p.m. March 12 at the elementary school.
School families are invited to pick a favorite spot in the gym, hear a story read about a cat who thinks he is a chihuahua in a circus, and see librarian Russell Pauls demonstrate his secret talent of making balloon animals.

Norman Winter, who was recently named Teacher of the Month by USD 410 principal Max Heinrichs, works as a special education teacher, not only for the Hillsboro school district but also for the entire Marion County Special Education Cooperative. He specializes in preparing special needs students for life after school.
“If a student can be in a regular Marion County classroom, then that is where he or she should be. Otherwise, it is my goal to prepare him or her for employment, continued education, and independent living,” Winter said. “Living independently usually means happiness, so I teach students how to be happy.”

The goal of project projectile, for engineering teacher Lance Sawyer, was to teach students to eliminate variables in a project through multiple variations of trial and error.
His students may not have noticed the lesson because they were having fun. Graham Pankratz said the projectile-launching competition to take place today in the Hillsboro High School gymnasium has become a point of pride for the students involved. The goal is to launch projectiles across the gym floor and land them within a 10-foot surface.

Hillsboro Elementary School Library has a full slate of events in the near future.
A Scholastic book fair begins today and continues through March 13. Hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Monday, and March 13, and 6:15 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The Technology Excellence in Education Network will have its monthly meeting at 6 p.m. March 13 in the USD 408 District Office, 101 N. Thorp St., Marion.
For more information, contact TEEN Director Brandi Hendrix at (620) 877-0237.

The Hillsboro girls’ basketball team defeated Haven, 43-32, Saturday to qualify for the state tournament. It is the fifth consecutive season the Trojans have qualified for the state tournament.
“People take for granted how difficult it is,” head coach Nathan Hiebert said. “It’s a testament to their work ethic and focus. Every year there is a little added pressure. The girls did it the right way — trusted their preparation, focus, and their teammates.”

The Hillsboro boys’ basketball team was down two points, 44-42, with 28.3 seconds left in the game Friday against Haven.
Evan Ollenburger earned a trip to the free-throw line following a Jesse Brown steal. His first free throw hit the back of the rim, then the front of the rim, before falling to the hardwood.

Snow delayed the sub-state basketball tournament schedule last week for the Goessel High School girls’ basketball team. But the Bluebirds advanced to the semi-final round to take on Fairfield after defeating Burrton, 47-34, on Feb. 27.
Against Burrton, the Goessel girls moved the ball well and Johanna Hoffman scored five quick points to get the game off to a good start for the Bluebirds.

The Goessel boys’ team had a cold performance Feb. 27 at Burrton.
Burrton began with the first seven points, but buckets from Ben Wiens, Trey Schmidt, Davis Cook and Nic Buller got Goessel back into the game trailing 11-10. The Chargers scored five more to end the first quarter with the Bluebirds looking at a 16-10 deficit.